Sonic Doctor:I guess it is because the bright colors or the cartoon feel I get from it, but I couldn't get into WoW. I am a fan of LotRO, yes it has color but if feels rather toned down compared to WoW, and that is what I like about it. Also, comparing with WoW and what I have heard other people explain about other MMOs, LotRO has a lot more storage for items than any other. I heard from People playing other MMOs that players get 30 on person storage to to start out. LotRO of course starts people off with 5 packs with 15 slots each, and then you get a vault in large towns that store 30 and you can buy more vault space as you level up. Also when you buy a house you get a storage container with it too. So I have well over 100 slots to store stuff, though I'm a pack rat and still run out of space.

If you like storage space, try EQ2. You fill inventory, bank and chest slots with boxes and bags, the largest of which holds 38? items. So you can be carting around hundreds of items on your person and have thousands total.

I won't go back to WoW, I like to be able to play my games forever when I buy them. And yes Shamus I know it's cheaper to play WoW (or was it Funk that did an article on it?), but I prefer to diversify in regards to the types of games I play and the unique experiences that come with them.

BehattedWanderer:Haha, oddly enough, skiers and snowboarders do challenge each other like that, or at least almost every one I know.

Yes, I can attest to this as well. I worked at a ski resort for a season when I was a teenager, and this was when snowboarding was first becoming popular. Many of the regular skiiers hated, HATED that they had to share the slopes with the boarders, and viewed them as intruders in their turf. This is turn led many of the boarders do dislike the skiiers, and it all went downhill (yes, I know... Sorry!) from there...

I actually think that "Go back to WoW" does have it's place, even if it's perhaps an overly harsh way of phrasing things. Let's you're a WoW player and love Feature X, which already exists in WoW. You then go to another game and complain that it doesn't have Feature X, even if feature X would never work in the new game. I think in that case "Go back to WoW" is not all that bad of a response. (A quick example of this is those who want flying mounts in LOTRO)

While it is true that MMOs are constantly developing and evolving beasts, they are not going to have everything for everyone, especially if some of those desired features don't fit in the MMO to begin with. When you bring your complaints to a forum you have to keep in mind that just because you think it's cool doesn't mean everyone else does (and often for good reason).

Arec Balrin:Please bare in mind that Warhammer Online was ruined when in 2006, a lot of people who had played WoW, didn't like the PvP in WoW and were expressing interest in this supposedly very PvP(RvR) focused game and subsequently and very vocally wanted it to be more like WoW.

When WHO came along, it was WoW. Almost all the PvP was pushed into instances against the advice of smart people that wanted an actual war-like environment with zero-sum rewards.

Er, honestly, what I heard coming out of the early beta stages of that game.. was that it wasn't very good from the get-go. But you are mostly correct, WAR was ruined because it was trying to be WoW. WAR came out schizophrenic. 1-20 was one game, and it was an awesome game, with some of the most enjoyable character classes I've ever played. 20-40 was another game. End-game raiding was half an idea for a third game scribbled on a bar napkin.. that was used to sop up a drink. A girly drink.

For the record I'll bandy out a "gb2wow" as I please, but when I please is only when it's deserved. People who like WoW and want every new game to be like WoW? gb2wow. Those people are the reason that the MMO market hasn't had any innovation *since* WoW -- people making and/or financing MMOs are afraid to diverge from the WoW model, and it doesn't help that people keep. droning. on. about how they want $ShinyNewGame to play exactly like WoW.

Galenor:I saw a lot of that in EVE Online forums. This is probably because the game is renown to being deep and complex, and EVEites see WoW as a shallow play. As soon as someone doesn't like the confusing UI, the complex upgrades and armor types, or the cruel wastelands of lawless space, well...what? You expect us to make our game more accessible? Screw that. To WoW, you luddite!

Another reply I hate towards critisism is often said by the creator of the media under fire - but not always. The counter goes "Well, I noticed how YOU have never made a movie/game/flash animation/drawing, so you can shut up!". I disliked it, because it implies you have to have attempted to make something similar to what you're critiquing, as if you cannot give judgement on your impression of Avatar if you, yourself, never made a billion-dollar-budget movie. Arghrgrhgh!

In all seriousness, I was fine with most everything with EVE, including the cruel wastelands and lawless space, but the big part the definitely needs to be changed about EVE is the learning upgrades to use items and ships.It is nice that it is complex that you have to learn the skills to use things, but seriously, it feels like the reason that it takes so long to research things, is that it is a tactic by CCP to keep people leveled out power wise and keep them playing longer. Many of those research times are ridiculous, like when I use to play, there was a ship that I really wanted to have because it had really good aspects on all parts of it, so I did the grinding and mining to earn the several hundred million isk to buy the ship, but then I found out I had to train a ton of skills to get to pilot it. I ended up taking a week to train 11 of the 12 skills I needed, up to the right levels. Then I came to the last skill which was a skill for flying Battleships or whatever(I don't remember what class the ship was), my skill was high enough that I only had to train one more level for it, "No problem I thought," I was wrong I put my cursor over to train it and clicked, it said that it would 31 days to train it. Seriously!!! A month!! So, I would have to wait that long and pay another 15 dollars for subscription before I could fly that stupid ship. When I found out it was that way with a lot of the other stuff, and how some of the skill books were way overpriced and would take more than a month to earn the money to buy them, that was when I quit playing. EVE is one big money milking stall. I added it up and if I took all my free time to earn the in game money to buy the skills I wanted and train what I needed to fly the ships I wanted to fly and be able to enter a big epic space battle, I would have to play for over a year to even remotely get to any decent space battle excitement.

Sonic Doctor:I guess it is because the bright colors or the cartoon feel I get from it, but I couldn't get into WoW. I am a fan of LotRO, yes it has color but if feels rather toned down compared to WoW, and that is what I like about it. Also, comparing with WoW and what I have heard other people explain about other MMOs, LotRO has a lot more storage for items than any other. I heard from People playing other MMOs that players get 30 on person storage to to start out. LotRO of course starts people off with 5 packs with 15 slots each, and then you get a vault in large towns that store 30 and you can buy more vault space as you level up. Also when you buy a house you get a storage container with it too. So I have well over 100 slots to store stuff, though I'm a pack rat and still run out of space.

If you like storage space, try EQ2. You fill inventory, bank and chest slots with boxes and bags, the largest of which holds 38? items. So you can be carting around hundreds of items on your person and have thousands total.

I'll think about it, but I really don't have the time anymore or the money to try new games. If there is a free-trial I guess I could check it out. But since I've put so much work into LotRO, I think I will stick with it for now.

Actually, I don't think it's a stupid saying, at least not usually. I played WoW, yes, but then I found LOTRO. I loved it. It was a game you could play a bit, put down, play a bit again, talk with friends on it, etc. It was a very social, and dare-I-say-it casual game. There was lots of RP always going on, the community was helpful, and everything seemed fun and not a giant e-peen competition. However, time constraints and such made me quit one month after it was released, one month of playing it.

I played WoW on and off, then eventually found my way back to LOTRO. Now it's full of "gear" and raiding, and people on the forums are constantly bitching about this or that. Most of the people are bitching that the game is changing into a WoW clone. Which it is. Its no longer about immersing yourself in Tolkien's world, which was the original goal. It's about climbing to the top of the phat loot leaderboards before the next patch rolls out. Instead of improving RP features, something the community would have wanted, Turbine decided to focus more on bringing in disenfranchised WoW-ers. And it brings in the wrong people, the people that actually WANT it to be a WoW clone, since that's what they're used to.

I can't count the number of times I saw "flyin moutns plz" or "guns ??" or "let us play as wizards ffs!" or even *shudder* "pvp everywhere plox!" on the forums by ex-WoWers. I feel the phrase "Go back to WoW" is fitting and acceptable for this..

Of course, if someone asks for reasonable improvements and some asshat just says "GO BACK TO WOW K" that is annoying and unfounded. But more often than not, at least for LOTRO, it's used in the correct place.

Fanboy-type bahaviour isnt unique to gaming- my surfing friends often malign my bodyboarding friends and vice versa, in a way that reminds me of a PS3tard going up against an Xbot. (and they mostly arent gamers, so this isnt learnt fanboy behaviour being applied to other things)

HAHAHAHA my brother is like that I was playing Mabinogi a game that he absolutely loves but I din't like various things about it and I told him you know this game would be better if you could... and I explained him how I felt the game could be improved in my opinion and he got pissed off and told me that my opinion didn't count because I played WoW for 3 months and what I was suggesting were some things that WoW already had! even though I don't really like WoW that much I do fell is either the best or second best I played I'm not sure if I like DDO better than WoW or vice-versa

Shamus Young:Gaming is full of fanboys. Are other hobbies like this? Do skiers and snow boarders hate each other with the same fervor as Xbox and PS3 fans? Do people that fish using waders call the other fishermen "boatfags"?

I will so be using this! This is like the best thing ever. Seriously. I can't for the life of me understand how fanboys think and this quote really shows just how stupid it is to flame somebody for not liking the stuff that you like or using the stuff that you use.

Well written, I enjoyed it. Also the "fangirls" are used, just not usually in video games. Usually used towards animes/other popular stuff(Twil-*hurls*). You very likely knew that but I just felt like putting something in this post.

Maybe we see fanboi-ism in gaming more because we are all so immersed into the hobby of gaming; even so, fanboi-ism definitely exists in other hobbies and activities. I've seen it, on occasion. But, I think the phenomenon is more noticeable or vociferous in gaming and technology circles because of the pervasiveness of the internet in those areas, allowing faster, more wide-spread communication.

For those with the patience to read my wall-o-text, here is a prior post I wrote regarding my views on the fanboi(I just simply like spelling it that way, for emphasis). For the TL;DR crowd, it basically says the fanboi is just someone who needs to grow-up.

geizr:I agree that the author is a little unclear in defining Angry Fandom(I just call it fanboi-ism). However, I think I have the general idea of where he is going or trying to go with this. If I am understanding correctly, the Angry Fan or fanboi over-obsesses about something because he just doesn't have anything else going on in his life.

In my own take on the subject, the anger comes because the fanboi builds an ideal of perfect, utopian bliss with the expectation that this is achievable only through the thing over which he obsesses. Further yet, because he is seeking to obtain a perfect utopia for himself, he is uncompromising of how his ideal should be realized. He is so personally vested in the object achieving his utopia, he becomes obsessed with even the most minor detail that causes him discomfort, inconvenience, distress, or unhappiness. As a consequence, any suggestion that his spring of utopia may be less than perfect is met with the greatest of fury and dissent.

Unfortunately, reality comes into view (damnable reality) and disrupts this idyllic image(basically revealing that the object of obsession is not so perfect), and the fanboi is not able to cope with this prospect because his entire life's happiness is dependent upon the ideal being true. Suddenly, the fanboi is forced to compromise his utopia and thus lose it. In truth, having utopia ripped away would make anyone extremely unhappy and malcontent; however, the difference that I am implying here is that losing a real utopia is much different from losing an idealized one that didn't exist in the first place.

The fanboi, basically, has not developed the emotional maturity to realize that nothing is perfect, and happiness is only what you make of it. No external thing can bring happiness and contentment; this is something that only comes from within through much soul-searching and personal reflection. The is nothing wrong with being enthusiastic over something or deeply involved in a given activity; but there needs to be a balanced mindset that tempers one's expectations and perspective and does not lend undeserved importance to any one thing. Life is a journey; enjoy the ride in all its variety and don't be in such a hurry to get to the destination, if there is one.

This is my opinion.

EDIT: The quoted post was in response to a feature article titled "Get a Life" in issue 217 of The Escapist.

I never got the go back to wow comment as it tends to be followed by people talking about grind. I remember it best from Aion when you mentioned the unholy grinding people would always respond go back to wow.

I don't get it really I played wow and Aion and Aion really did have too much grind, I don't think any game should ever have grinding. It's a complete waste of time and you have to be dumb as all hell if you think a game should have it. Grinding proves nothing but a developers inability to make fun content the whole way through leveling and just them making filler.

Every mmo I have ever played and I have played oh so damn many both payed and f2p mmo have all had grinding (even wow) and It never made sense. If you find grinding fun you honestly need to quit gaming all together go out to the woods in a cabin and just reflect on your life for a good year. Then come back and go back to grinding tell me if you still are jaded enough to think it's fun.

The best answer I can come up with on how people justify grinding is that they think it makes them the "Hardcore" fan base and that's just a load of crap. Calling yourself a hardcore gamer is probably one of the dumbest things I have heard. There are gamers and there are non gamers, non gamers include casual only gamers. Grinding for 20 hours on an mmo doesn't make you hardcore it makes you a very boring looser, and yes this is coming from someone who has spent ungodly amounts of time in games.

To put it simple if you want to spend hours and hours in front of a game go ahead but it should at least be fun. Grinding is not fun and I can say with the utmost confidence that anyone saying grinding isn't so bad is lying right out their ass. People who go around saying they don't mind grinding are the stoners of the gaming world, you know who I am talking about the people who never shut up about getting high(grinding) and tell the same 3 stories about getting high(grinding) every day.

I don't usually visit an MMO's official forums, so I've only ever come across the phrase in-game. And in that case, it's usually directed at jerks and miscreants, which I can agree with. Having played WoW for quite a while, I can say that the game is rightfully infamous for breeding griefers and immature brats.

In the context you mention however, yes I can see how that would be counter productive.

cidbahamut:So how does the prospect of a niche market play into this theory? Should the niche crowd allow their game to be improved at the cost of what they enjoy about the game?

Shamus seems to be coming at this pretty one-sidedly.

This captures my point perfectly. Warhammer Online was supposed to be the niche game many PvP-minded players like myself are still looking for: a recognisable setting but with a focus on open-world fighting. The whole concept of this was completely obliterated by an extreme focus on instancing and Jeff Hickman's absurd claim that "other MMO developers tried to make worlds, we're trying to make a game" when it's extremely easy to make a cast-iron case for why the opposite is true. Warhammer Online became saturated by people that didn't like open-world PvP and some of us were like "well why the friggin hell are you here?". But they became the dominant voice on the community websites and were talking non-stop about WoW game-mechanics: raiding, inflexible class roles and ways of avoiding any compulsory PvP. Mythic catered to their every whim.

Ironically, they all did go back to WoW. That's what happens when you chase after the most fickle people looking for the next WoW and ignore the loyal long-term player-base looking for the game you were promoting in the first place. If only they had gone back to WoW sooner.

It's pretty simple, really. Many, many MMO players have tried WoW at some point, and a large part of an MMO fanbase could be "WoW refugees", people that quit because they got fed up with the game, didn't like where it was going or were just flat out frustrated by the experience. As such, they see the game and everything connected to it as bad, so when some player is not doing something like they want, they toss out the phrase.

It's kinda sad, really. How long did these people torment themselves with playing WoW when they started to find it not fun? Why the hell did they even do it? There's a thin line between love and hate, and I guess WoW is a good example for the saying.

Of course, there are also the fleeting entitled players from WoW, that are used to dwelling into forums, typing long whiny threads and generally steering the game in a counterproductive direction. In that case, yes, I can sort of understand the phrase. I personally wouldn't say that, though. A simple "get out" or "stop playing MMOs, play something more suited to your needs" would suffice enough.

As someone who has said "go back to WoW" on occasion, I feel a need to chime in. Believe it or not there are people who don't like WoW, moreover there are people -- myself included -- that believe WoW may have irreparably ruined MMORPGs.

We seek out other games to play. When we find them, they always come with a global/general chat and forums filled with new players constantly assuming everything should be just like WoW or constantly stating how this game needs such an such a feature to be better... like WoW.

"Go back to WoW" is a statement used by very frustrated and fed up communities. They are not frustrated by the game because it is "dysfunctional and unhealthy", they are frustrated by the slew of players who refuse to accept not everything is WoW, and that it is not the be all and end all. They are frustrated by people who have little to no MMO experience outside WoW that spam and trash talk on a game before giving it a fair shot.

WoW fans tend to be pretty closed minded, and more than often venture to new games because they are F2P or were allured by new shiny graphics, few seem to try new games for an actual new gaming experience.

It should go without saying, but if someone posts in a forum with a suggestion akin to WoW, it's not exactly original, furthermore you can assume it's been brought up countless times. So do they even merit a real response? Especially if you consider the general inability of these people to use the forum's search feature.

"Go back to WoW" is a reasonable response to people, because in all liklihood it's been said 5,000 times before, and those who know better realize that further discussion would be pointless. In the same regard, WoW players love to use the "it's more popular so it has to be better" response, which is every bit as much of an "attempt to shut down or outlaw critical discussion," as "go back to WoW".

Anyways... if you don't want to hear it, then stick with WoW (see what I did thar).

I find it most annoying with the younger WoW players myself. It is their chosen game simply, because it was their first. I remember getting in a tiny spat with a WoW player because as far as he was concerned Dragon Age was just ANOTHER WoW rip-off. Like Blizzard's largest cash cow was some kind of genre originator. It irked me. I suppose people aren't really looking for new experiences. There's a very good reason North Americans flock to McDonald's when they're in Paris.

Lvl 64 Klutz:I don't usually visit an MMO's official forums, so I've only ever come across the phrase in-game. And in that case, it's usually directed at jerks and miscreants, which I can agree with. Having played WoW for quite a while, I can say that the game is rightfully infamous for breeding griefers and immature brats.

Having spent substantial time on THE INTERNETS prior to WoW's explosion on the scene, I can say that the game is wrongfully infamous for breeding griefers and immature brats when, in fact, it is merely a repository of previously-bred griefers and immature brats. In most cases they were the way they are before getting into WoW - it isn't some corrosive entity de-souling our youth to transform them into hellish monsters. It's just an online game. A very popular one.

As for usage of the phrase in question, I find it's usually used by the jerks and miscreants rather than directed at them, save in cases where it's jerks and miscreants talking to miscreants and jerks. I can't think of a time when I've seen someone say "go back to WoW" who otherwise seemed a rational, level-headed, mature person. It has always been some jackass with nothing better to say in response to either a) another jackass or b) someone expressing an opinion contrary to the jackass's point of view, regardless of the difference.

Mostly I see it come up when someone mentions being fed up with some flavor of grinding, asks for help figuring out a quest line (as obviously this means the game is far above their level and they should go back to EZmode MMO, rather than - god forbid - someone help them enjoy THIS game and thereby add to the community), makes some remark about balance (X class is OP, Y race needs Z ability, etc. - this is actually coming up in Blizzard's own forum for the SC2 beta, amusingly enough. Yes, you read that right: people in the closed beta for an RTS game are telling people with gripes to go back to an MMORPG. It knows no boundaries!), or expresses any generalized sort of ignorance about the game.

I remember when I lurked Warhammer Online forums, back when I played it, I saw plenty of "Go back to WoW". Apparently most took the hint and went to WoW. Warhammer having marginally a theme similar to WoW, more than the ones compared at least, took a huge hit with poor user experience and dev relations.

I think it sometimes has to do with hatred of WoW itself (or the WoW fanbase). I sometimes get so frustrated with my friends' obsession with WoW and unwillingness to play and apreciate other games that I start developing a hatred of WoW itself. So I go online and look for better MMO's just so i could rub it in their faces. So far all my attepts failed but I put my thrust in TOR. So you cold say, in my case at lest that the "Go back to WoW" was brought on by the fanboyish nature of WoW players who see no wrong in their precious WoW and think all games either rip off or don't rise to the same level as their precious WoW (and i'm not talking about just MMO's here). So yeah maybe the "Go back to WoW" bit is fanboyish but they where the first fanboys so any thing goes.

Taco of flames:I'll admit, the title confused me. "Go back to WoW? But Shamus hates WoW!" I proceeded to read the article, which clarified it for me. I, personally, have not seen those words used often. I play WoW myself, and never really understood the hatred people treat it with.

Angry rant below. I'm not looking for a fight, this is just how I feel about people who don't consider that some people like WoW.

In response to what you have said, it is never WoW itself I have a problem with, but the fanbase, because the most vocal among them I have encountered are exactly as you describe people treating WoW. Though lately it's less been the WoW fanbase and more Valve's, but that is an entirely different topic in and of itself, and as such I digress back to the article at hand.

Ciler:I think the insult towards WoW is because it's sorta like Disney... huge, popular, successful, and brings lots of joy to young and old people alike.

But they don't hate jews. As much. And they have yet to sell their souls to the devil to continuously and shamelessly reap in money in the stupidest way possible. Blizzard basically just put the candy on the stoop and waited for all the kiddies to come running. As long as theres candy, there'll be kids. Disney went past overachieving into some dark, anti-seminist, prideless territory.

Catkid906:Don't make me go back to WoW... Don't say it... Exam Season is starting...

Calumon: Please don't make him... He's clean for 3 months tomorrow!

I know how you feel. I've tried to quit several times and this time (3rd for the record) is my longest at over a year. The only problem is that you will feel like playing an MMO. So you try something else and its just not the same. It's an endless cycle, but I have high hopes for The Old Republic and potentially Fallout Online and if those fail me then I'll just have to keep going strong.

On a side note: I wonder how many times "go back to WoW has appeared on the Warhammer Online forums?

"Go back to WoW" makes perfect sense when someone makes a suggestion that would turn a fun and unique game into a less-fun WoW clone. Seriously, if you want to play a game exactly the same as WoW, just... play WoW. Not all MMO's need to be the same.